


i'd still be on my feet

by in_coffee_spoons



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Tenderness, and also just a lot of, just a load of, the gang's mentioned but not really here, to be immortal and in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:28:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27386440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/in_coffee_spoons/pseuds/in_coffee_spoons
Summary: “Slow,” Yusuf says, voice rough to his own ears, uncharacteristically mean, “use simpler words.”orJoe and Nicky communicate and show love over the years.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 42
Kudos: 339





	i'd still be on my feet

**Author's Note:**

> Peeps, I’m in love with their love. 
> 
> Title is from “A Case of You” by Joni Mitchell.
> 
> I don’t speak Arabic and my Italian is pretty rusty, so I’ve just decided to stay safe and hint at the languages the boys are speaking rather than attempt to translate them; it is my professional duty as a future translator to not shit in my own mouth, so here we go. 
> 
> Rated M for some sexual content and slight mentions of gore (not a lot of either tbh).
> 
> Not much more for me to say really, so I’ll let the boys do it themselves.

_I could drink a case of you, darling  
Still, I'd be on my feet_

"A Case Of You", Joni Mitchell

#### 1100

Yusuf’s head hurts like someone tried to extract his brain from his skull. Through either his nose or his ear. 

To be frank, that was almost what the man violently gasping to life had tried to do by sticking his dagger straight through Yusuf’s cheek. Pulling it out was probably one of the most unpleasant experiences he can remember, akin to boning a bird or removing a thorn from an infected wound.

It had happened too fast to properly dissect, and the headache was passing, on its way to being gone. This is the one aspect of the entire immortality situation that he truly appreciates, even though some deaths are not as easy to recover from as others. Still, he seems to be coming back to life faster each time. Yusuf likes to think it is a practiced skill at which one only becomes better and more adept.

The stabber is still lying supine in the dirt and dust. Prior to the chaos of the last few minutes, he and Yusuf had been following each other around the city and its outskirts for days, weeks even, he has lost count, trying to trick one another and see, praying for finality, whether one would triumph over the other and be free of this burden. 

What exactly the burden was, Yusuf was not sure. Eternity? An eternity killing this man and dying at his feet? What has he so wronged to deserve it, Yusuf wondered as he tried to force spit down his scratching throat. Drops of blood bubbled on the large cut still healing across his chest as he took a deep breath.

If Yusuf’s body could hurt like it could before, he would be physically on the brink of exhaustion; this way, it is only his soul that is bone-ass tired.

The man has slowly risen, tunic completely covered in blood, piss and what look like bits of spleen. His face is hidden behind a layer of dirt as thick as the one Yusuf feels drying on his temple and chin in the heat; yet, his eyes seem as clear as the cleanest sea.

He’s saying something, speaking fast; Yusuf does not have the patience nor the willpower to listen. Still, with the last remnants of strength he catches a few words he knows in the man’s quiet and quick litany. _I’m tired_. Something, something, one tense or another. _Rest_. A strange adverb? Or a preposition. No, an expression of some sort. _We continue_. The man laughs, but it comes out as just a gust. His voice is dry and deep, but there’s an underlying softness.

Yusuf wrecks his already wrecked brain to place the language. Something on the Apennine peninsula. Ligurian? Genovese? Maybe. Either way, his is rusty; he’s sure that combining it with some Latin, although ridiculous, might work.

"Slow," Yusuf says, voice rough to his own ears, uncharacteristically, "use simpler words."

The man seems shocked, mesmerizing eyes wide; Yusuf has never seen eyes quite that opaque.

"You understand me?" he asks in his tongue, but takes Yusuf’s advice. His words are slow and measured.

"Merchant. That is my job. Before this, at least." Yusuf smiles crookedly. 

The man also smiles. His face quickly drops to its previous stoic scorn.

They stay quiet for a bit, observing each other. The air is thick with heat and sand. It is well after midday, and they are far from the city, south. More south than Yusuf had planned on going. 

The Frank is watching him with his sharp eyes and Yusuf suddenly feels a pang of anger so intense he contemplates throwing the dagger previously lodged into his cheekbone at him and hoping against all hope he stays dead. Why stop? Even if he is tired as well, why allow this man to rest, while his kind is still destroying the city they had escaped from?

He is so tired. He cannot go on today; tomorrow, he will try again.

He tries to say as much. Why can he only remember the names of fruits and different kinds of fabrics in that damn language?

"I am tired and cannot go on. I am afraid, fiend, that I cannot kill you today." He is sure at least one of those verbs is incorrect. 

The man is looking at him. He says nothing for a few moments.

Then he says clearly: "Why do you think you will kill me? I think I might kill you first."

"I do not give a fuck about what you think."

The man smiles.

"Well. Let us wait and see." Then he says something Yusuf doesn’t catch. He frowns in confusion.

The man raises his eyebrows.

"I asked you what is your name?" he says slowly, like he’s talking to an idiot, and puts a hand to his chest, thumps it slightly. "Me – Nicolo."

Yusuf snorts in disbelief. _Name_ , truly. Is that not the first thing one learns? This fool must have asked him what designation had his fore-parents bestowed upon his personage. 

"Yusuf. Yusuf is my name." he says, and for some reason known only to Allah, laughs.

"Yusuf." Nicolo repeats, as if testing it. He smiles.

#### 1111

Cold desert sand is always a sensation for the senses, especially when the days are as warm as they tend to be now. Yusuf feels the tiny grains on the back of his head and on his hands, pushes his fingers in like he sometimes does at a market when the merchant isn’t looking, plunging his fingers into peas or grains of spice, and feels at peace.

The sky is clear. He is teaching Nicolo to read the stars.

"That one," he says, pointing to the large wheelbarrow just to their left, "that is the Big Dipper. It is part of the _Ursa Major_." He runs it through a few other languages he knows, names he has read in his books and used to note down as a child.

Nicolo smiles. "Now, that I know," he says with a laugh, turning his head so the gust of air caresses Yusuf’s earlobe and cheek.

After the first few months, when they had finally gained constant access to water, and when they realized they would be spending time together every day, Yusuf had finally learned what Nicolo’s voice sounded like when it was kind and directed at him; the two instances seem interchangeable now. 

He could not get enough of it. He cannot get enough of it.

He turns his head slightly and smiles in return. "Well, I always have to start slow with you, do I not?" Nicolo pushes at his shoulder but his laugh is deep and strong, and fills Yusuf like a stream fills an empty barrel. Invigorating and reassuring. Soft, like the small grains of sand.

Yusuf thinks about… well, many things, these days. How at peace he is; how much not dying every few hours has made them stronger, more agile, well-rested; how he doesn’t like when Nicolo is killed during a job and takes too long to wake; how his large, soft hands are on Yusuf’s cheek and in his hair as he waits for him to wake from a death.

They have not killed each other now, not even by accident (that one time in 1109 when Yusuf accidentally shot Nicolo during an ambush _doesn’t count!_ , and he will go to his grave defending that claim; _a long time, then_ , Nicolo had said with a laugh; _a long time, then_ , Yusuf had responded in a mocking tone; he prays for it every day) for a grand 10 years. 

A decade of dancing around each other, trying to find the right moment to steal a glance or elicit a smile. Yusuf can almost see the grains slipping through his fingers as through the thin neck of an hourglass, piling at his feet as if to show how many opportunities he has missed to… well.

"What about the Little Dipper? _Ursa Minor_?" Yusuf asks instead, looking at Nicolo, "Show it to me."

Nicolo looks up at the sky. Yusuf keeps his eyes on Nicolo’s face, his large nose and strong jaw, lip full from the profile.

He lifts his hand, moves his fingers as if measuring. _Good_ , Yusuf thinks, maybe even murmurs it quietly, unintentionally, because Nicolo smiles wide as would a child who has just received praise from a teacher.

"There," he says triumphantly, pointing up. 

"Where? I cannot see it," Yusuf plays foolish. He wants Nicolo to turn towards him and look at him, explain it to his face so that he can see his mouth move and his eyes close slightly and go cross-eyed because they are so close.

Instead, Nicolo scoots closer and aligns his hand with Yusuf’s line of vision as much as possible. "Right there," he says, "that is the North Star. _Polaris_. And it is six spaces away from the back of the Big Dipper. In _Ursa Major_. And it is the end of the Little Dipper. In _Ursa Minor._"

__

" Very good," Yusuf says, inflection awed on purpose. He wants to see Nicolo laugh.

__

And he does, and he looks at Yusuf, and his eyes close slightly and go cross-eyed.

__

" Show me more," Nicolo says, his face filled with such obvious affection that Yusuf doesn’t know what to do for a moment. _Of course_ , he wants to say. _I’d do anything for you_.

__

He does not want to look away, but does. Looking up, he tries to think of what to show Nicolo. Hercules? Was it this time of year that you see it? Or maybe a planet? He would like that. He can make out Jupiter and Saturn, closely together, and Mars may be here as well. He closes his eyes for a moment to compose his mind.

__

He can tell there is a slight chill because his hands are cold. Suddenly, he feels a different chill altogether when a soft brush of fingers against his hand makes him tense and turn his head just a bit to the left. 

__

Nicolo is looking down at the single point of contact between their bodies, the calloused fingers of his right hand brushing gently up and down the little spot of skin just under Yusuf’s wrist. He hasn’t stopped, thankfully didn’t interpret Yusuf’s sudden flex as fear. 

__

_It is anything but fear_ , Yusuf wants to shout at him, but affectionately. _I love you_.

__

Nicolo looks up at him.

__

" Yusuf," he says, voice a whisper, balancing on the edge between before and the rest of their lives.

__

Yusuf suddenly finds himself staring down at the easiest decision of his life. He looks at Nicolo’s mouth and leans to him, closing the distance, sealing their fate.

__

__

#### 1208

__

__

The sun is hot on Yusuf’s neck, but he thinks he would be warm even if submerged in icy water. 

__

They are sat near a stream and the ground around them is wet. He’s using a stick to write a word in Arabic in the cakey mud at their feet.

__

_Moon_ , he writes. _Sun_ is written to his left, a crude drawing accompanying it, along with Nicolo’s truly abysmal attempt to recreate it.

__

Yusuf hands the stick to Nicolo, who looks at him with warm eyes. They stare at each other and Yusuf feels his cheeks grow warmer still, sees Nico’s blush clear as day; not sunburn, as he had teased him.

__

Nicolo looks down and frowns in concentration. He starts on the wrong side and then curses slightly, tries to scratch it out, but just makes a mess. Yusuf is laughing the whole time and Nicolo looks up, eyes loving and mouth bared in a smile.

__

Over the last hundred and something years, Yusuf has spent more days smiling than not. There have been some hard times; his father is dead, as are his mother and siblings, but a few grand-nephews lives close to the sea in Tunisia. Nicolo died a number of horrible deaths. They were separated for two years, and not by choice. 

__

Still, to live for a hundred years is a blessing not many have been given. And here he is, Yusuf al-Kaysani, sharing what he hopes will shape up to be the first of many centuries with Nicolo di Genova. 

__

He looks down at what Nico has written, tries his hardest to recognize anything in that horrible squiggle, just to make him feel a little better. Nicolo had been the one who insisted on learning Arabic. _I want us to speak in your language as well one day_ , he had said, and Yusuf loved him.

__

But try as he might, Allah help him, he cannot see anything. He just laughs.

__

When he looks up, Nicolo is looking at him with a wide smile and eyes so profoundly soft he feels as if each breath he breathes in is filling every little nook of his body with ease, making him giddy and light enough to float. Nicolo reaches for his hand and kisses his palm, and when he lowers it his big, beautiful white teeth are gently biting his bottom lip, and suddenly, Yusuf finds he does not care to teach him right now. 

__

They have an eternity; he will learn.

__

__

#### 1433

__

__

The air in the cottage is chill and fresh. There is a strong scent of the sea making its way through the open window into the room.

__

The sun is setting and painting the room just the right colours. Yusuf swipes his finger gently on the slight curve of Nicolo’s lip, the charcoal losing some edge and blending with the shadow on his cheek. He looks up from his paper and smiles.

__

Over the centuries, Nicolo has become very good at sitting still and posing for portraits, irrespective of the pose and situation. Wherever they stop, wherever they have lived over the years, he makes sure Yusuf has access to at least some materials for his sketches and drawings, remembers to buy the right kind of paper and the right shade of pen when he knows Yusuf is low on stock. Yusuf never notices, but he guesses it’s because Nicolo always does.

__

The only thing he has not yet mastered is keeping his gaze where Yusuf instructs him, because he always ends up looking at Yusuf.

__

" Face that way, please", Yusuf says quietly in Arabic and points left with a charcoal-stained finger, even if they have no reason to be quiet; they are alone here, and likely alone for miles. Still, the atmosphere calls for a quiet tone, and Yusuf is still softest in his mother tongue. Having spent centuries with him, Nicolo has become fluent. His accent is a little funny only sometimes.

__

Nicolo smiles slightly, but obeys.

__

Yusuf knows he is not the best company like this – he tends to stay quiet, too focused on the right stroke of the hand to keep up even a light conversation, although he is getting better at it, Nicolo’s assured him. _Maybe another 350 years and you will be able to do both at once_ , he had teased.

__

" I can’t seem to get your nose right." He’s annoyed; that is his favourite part of Nico’s face.

__

" Well, you had better come over here and get a closer look, then," Nicolo says with a wink and actually slaps his thighs as invitation. Yusuf laughs loudly, feeling as giddy as he usually does when Nicolo is playful and the evening is calm. 

__

He gets up and crosses the little distance between them.

__

" It is better this way, anyway. The light is going down, I cannot see you very well from there," he says as he straddles Nicolo’s thighs.

__

" See, what did I tell you?," Nicolo says with a content sigh, placing his hands on Yusuf’s hips. There is no ulterior motive or change in the mood, just comfort and warmth.

__

" Of course," Yusuf agrees. He cannot keep the smile out of his voice, doesn’t bother to hide how happy he is. He lifts his hand, inspects it to check that it is as clean as possible, although he knows Nicolo doesn’t mind, often ends up with smudges matching Yusuf's when he forgets to wash his hands before cupping Nicolo’s face for a kiss. One cannot live with an artist and not suffer through the occasional stain. And they often take a longer time to fade than their bruises and wounds do to heal.

__

" Do not worry about the charcoal," Nicky confirms his thoughts, hands still on Yusuf’s hips.

__

" I like when you have it on your skin," Yusuf confesses, tracing the line of Nicolo’s nose.

__

Nicolo hums and smiles at him and his eyelids flutter a little when Yusuf reaches the tip of his nose.

__

" It makes me feel like you have me on your body," he says, no hint of embarrassment in his voice because he knows Nicolo will accept anything he tells him.

__

" If there is no other way to mark you as mine, there is this," he adds and feels the hands on his hips grasp firmly. Nicolo exhales a shaky breath and glides his hands gently up Yusuf’s back, brings them closer together, nudges his face into the crook of Yusuf’s neck and inhales deeply.

__

They say nothing for a while, just hold each other and wait for their breaths to match up. He hums in Nicolo’s ear to get his attention.

__

" Shall we go to bed?" he asks. He wants to hold Nicolo for hours.

__

" Yes, please," Nicolo says and lifts him up, the sound of their laughter echoing around the room.

__

__

#### 1721

__

__

The nightmares are one thing, Joe thinks; he has had nightmares before, although not this brutal, but still. 

__

It is the moment just before sleep that is the worst; the expectation of falling and immediately going underwater, to Quỳnh. The feeling is so singular that Joe feels water go down his throat, bring him to the edge of existence, and then let him go. The pressure on his chest is so strong he sometimes wakes in actual physical pain, accidentally nudging Nicky awake with his knee or an elbow to the back.

__

_Sorry, sorry_ , he mumbles half-asleep, stroking a gentle hand down Nicky’s arm. Nicky, who’s already got one hand on the knife lying by their cot and the other on the dagger lodged between the mattress and the frame, will shush him softly, say _don’t mention it, love_ , and hold Joe’s hands in his, lull him back to sleep with an old Genovese song or some murmurs in English, a reassurance in Arabic.

__

" I don’t want to go back to sleep," Yusuf admits. He feels weak and selfish. He cannot handle metaphorical water in his chest in a dream, and Quỳnh is somewhere out there enduring it every minute of every day. He should be able to suffer through it, for her. And when the day comes, they will go back to looking for her, and they won’t stop until they find her.

__

" Then don’t," Nicky says simply, "Talk to me instead."

__

" But you’re tired," Joe protests, because they really are. On their feet every day with Andromache, looking for Quỳnh. "I’ll get over it."

__

" As will I," says Nicky and turns around so they’re face to face, "Come now, tell me about that poem you’ve been working on."

__

It was something about a voyager in the desert who is trying to find his way back home to his lover, but he is lost, so he looks to the moon for guidance. And the moon is his lover in magical form and is guiding him home.

__

" Sounds very nice," says Nicky, smiling because he knows.

__

" Do you want me to recite it to you?" Joe asks, and finds himself smiling in return because he knows the answer. Nicky hums in consent.

__

And so it goes, and they sleep. Still the dreams come.

__

__

#### 1899

__

__

" Yusuf," Nicky exhales and moans loudly, the first sounds he’s spoken in the better part of the last twenty minutes. 

__

Joe feels slightly insane. They’re sat in bed, sheets rumpled around them, pooled at the bottom of the bedframe and draped over it like in some painting. Joe is in Nicky’s lap and has his hand around both of them, slick from before and slippery from another few drops of the oil they always get when they come here, even after three centuries. Thank god for family traditions.

__

He brings his face to Nicky’s and licks the drop of sweat slowly going down his nose; Nicky moans again, deep and guttural, and tangles the hand he’s not using to keep them upright into Joe’s hair, pushing them together until their lips are joined. They breathe hotly into each other’s mouths more so than kiss, too aroused and impatient to care.

__

Nicky moves away from Joe’s mouth, but continues planting wet and open-mouthed kisses down his cheek and neck, all the way to his sternum. Joe leans back slightly, puts one hand on Nicky’s thick thigh to hold himself upright and allow him more access. 

__

Nicky traces a trail of kisses from the centre of his chest to his heart and stops there, but doesn’t move away. He keeps his mouth just over Joe’s heart, laps at the skin with his tongue. Joe can barely find enough focus to breathe.

__

He remembers the many times Nicky’s sword had pierced the skin there, back at the beginning, thinks about how many scars they would have if they couldn’t heal and how he would carry them all on his skin if it meant Nicky would be here with him, 800 years on. Knows Nicky would do the same.

__

" I love you," Nicky sighs, right there, directly into Joe’s heart. 

__

Joe feels his something in his belly twist. "Nicolo," he whispers, needy, moving his hand now to place it on Nicky’s cheek and pull him back up so they’re almost at face level. He wraps his other hand around Nicky’s shoulders and feels faint with how broad he is, strong and present here.

__

Nicky takes over for them, eyes focused on Joe’s face, the way they always seem to be.

__

" I love you," he repeats to Joe’s face, and that is all there is. 

__

__

#### 2021

__

__

" What have I done to deserve this?" he wonders as he watches Nicky add some basil into his sauce.

__

" What is ‘this’?" Nicky asks without looking up, brows burrowed slightly in concentration as he mixes with the large wooden spoon they bought the last time they went to Italy for the holidays.

__

" An eternity. With you," Joe says with a soft smile. He cannot be otherwise around Nicky.

__

Nicky looks at him and Joe feels every last cell in his body sing with love. He is chained to the spot, but they may as well be floating on a cloud, or lulled by the sea at a Maltese beach. That is how light he feels.

__

" I love you," he says. He will burst if he doesn’t say it, or it has been a while and he hasn’t let Nicky know that he loves him. "I am so in love with you."

__

Nicky is looking at him. He knows that expression. Like when he first spoke to him in Ligurian, or when he taught him Arabic, or bought him sweets in his own hometown; when they talk all the way to the early hours of the morning, or cook together, _kafteji_ or some _pasta ortolana_ , anything they feel like, or after a particularly good mission, or when they make love slowly and at peace. 

__

Nicky looks at him like that most of the time, when he thinks about it, even after all these years.

__

" Do you realize," Joe says, because he cannot stop and because he doesn’t want to, "that no two people have ever loved each other the way you and I have?"

__

Nicky keeps looking at him, a soft smile lifting one side of his face and making him look incredibly soft.

__

" When we met, I thought," he goes on, because they are alone and because they are happy, "’What have I done to be punished this way?’, to spend an eternity having to kill you."

__

They both laugh, because it is ridiculous. They must have had this conversation before. You’re bound to repeat some ridiculous story if you’ve lived as long as they have. They’re nearly a thousand years old, they are allowed to be ridiculous.

__

" Do you think I was any different?" Nicky asks, but his voice is so fond he can’t stop smiling.

__

" I hope not," Joe says through a laugh of his own.

__

Nicky is pensive for a moment, looking down at his sauce. 

__

" I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way," he says in Arabic, his accent clearer now than it was before; they haven’t spoken it in a while. "A lifetime, or however many, with you. That is the only life I could ever want," he says, his gaze now holding Joe’s.

__

Joe wants to ask him _but what if it isn’t an eternity_ , but he knows the answer. It isn’t, because there was Lykon. And then there’s Andy. It’s too fresh to think about. There is also Nile, whom they love; there will be Booker, sometime from now. They won’t be alone, if anything happens… but he won’t think about it, not now.

__

" It won’t be an eternity," Nicky says in his place, because of course he does, "but we were brought together by fate, or God, or whatever have you. Do you really think that I will let it take you away from me that easily?"

__

Joe feels his body sigh in relief. _I love you_ , all the nerve endings in his body sing in unison. He has surely never felt love like this. 

__

Except, of course he has.

__

**Author's Note:**

> *mentions moon and sun symbolism while holding the you know I had to do it to ‘em pose * 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know if something is bothering you and I can look into fixing it! And leave a comment if you'd like as well, I'd love to know what you think.
> 
> Lots of love and stay safe, you guys!


End file.
